The invention generally relates to organic illumination sources. The invention particularly relates to organic illumination sources with controllable illumination.
Conventional light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent sources emit color in a pre-defined spectral range, and the color of a single light source cannot be tuned at will. In order to have a color-tunable light-emitting device, a multitude of light sources must be assembled, and the intensity of the light emitted therefrom controlled. This can lead to impractical, physically bulky devices and the resulting color is often spatially not uniform to the eye. Further, for various lighting applications including area illumination sources and backlighting sources for displays, it is desirable to have illumination sources with controllable illumination, where color, intensity, or both is controllable.
Prior approaches to providing specific colored OLED illumination sources include using OLED sources with a plurality of electroluminescent material emitting at different wavelengths or flat displays with arrays of colored OLED elements, such as red, blue, and green emitting OLED elements. Such approaches may fall short of providing the required light intensity and color mixing required for a desired illumination effect.
It would therefore be highly desirable to provide an area illumination source in which the illumination source can be tuned to provide a desired intensity, chromaticity, and color rendition index.